LibertyChurch

Sermons

September 20, 2015

A Pro-Life Plea

Dr. David J. Vaughan

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

The Thrive Banquet

So, how many of you were at the Thrive banquet last night, stand up? Stand? All right. It was a great evening.

A Unique Moment

And the Lord has kind of impressed on my heart to address the pro-life topic today, partly because of the banquet, but partly because of the revelations we’ve seen with all the recent videos. Are you aware of the Planned Parenthood videos? Raise your hand if you’re aware of those. Have you watched any of them? And so I think there’s a unique moment for the church in America.

I believe that in some ways God is giving at least my generation a second chance to do something regarding abortion in America. So I wanted to share out of Matthew, if you go to Matthew 9, Matthew 9, Jesus is confronted with a multitude and he says in verse 36 of Matthew 9, he says, “But when He saw the multitude, He was moved with compassion for them because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd. Then he said to the disciples, the harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” There’s three things I want to mention today in light of what are being called the revelations of what’s happening in Planned Parenthood. The first is this, is that I believe that as a church, the church, we need to open our eyes. We need to open our eyes. What do I mean by that? I mean that we need to look at the world that we live in and not turn away because the things that we see are difficult or they are painful. I’m not saying you have to watch every one of those videos. My point is there is a tendency for Christians to be escapists.

Pietism and the Harsh Realities of Life

This is what some people call, pietism. Pietism is a faith which is divorced from the harsh realities of life.

So we often come to church, and we come to church because we want to get some joy. We want to get some happiness. We want to be built up. [audio unclear] Bonhoeffer. He said this, he said dealing with some difficult events in Germany as Hitler was coming into power, he said, you might be startled by my text today as too relevant and thus too dangerous for a worship service. We really want to get rid of the world of newspapers and sensational news in the Church. And he says that’s quite right. But what really matters is getting rid of the world in the right way. In the right way. Therefore it cannot really be a question of getting rid of these things by closing our eyes to them, or by forgetting them as quickly as possible, even if only for a short time. Rather, it is a question of knowing that we have to face them as Christians. It is not only important that we get rid of these things, but how R of these things.

He says there are some people who cannot go to a funeral, or better, they do not want to go. because they fear the emotional shock they may get by being in the immediate presence of a dead person. They do not want to see this side of human life and think that they can eliminate these things by not looking. There are even those who think it is especially pious not to see the somber, dark side of life, to close one’s eyes to the catastrophes of the catastrophes of this world and to lead one’s own contemplative life of piety in a spirit of peaceful optimism. However, it could never be good to cheat oneself out of the truth. Whoever cheats oneself out of the truth about one’s own life certainly also cheats oneself out of God’s truth. It is certainly never pious to close our eyes in situations where they have to see sad, horrible things, especially since God gave us our eyes to see our neighbor in his need. Therefore, it is certainly never the right way to get rid of the things that frighten and depress us. And there is certainly a scapism in the church. It was in the church in Germany, it’s in the church in America today, we do not want to see. We do not want to know because the things are too disturbing and too troubling. So many do not watch the videos, many do not want to know what’s going on inside of an abortion clinic because it is too painful for them. Unfortunately, as Christians, we We don’t have that option because we are accountable for our knowledge. This is a very simple doctrine in the Bible that we are accountable for the light that God has given us. So when we see revelations of some of the terrible things that are happening around us, we then are accountable for that knowledge. Because fortunately we cannot say we do not know because we do know. We do know. In Proverbs 24, if you want to drawn toward death and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, surely we did not know this, does not he who weighs the hearts consider it?

He who keeps the soul, does he not know it? And will he not render to each man according to his deeds? In other words, we cannot plead ignorance. In this room, every Christian that’s gathering today in congregations all around our nation know that abortion has been legal in the United States for over 40 years, and they know that approximately one million babies are aborted every year. We know this. And one of the things that struck me as the public began to react to these videos about Planned Parenthood was, what’s worse, killing the baby or selling the parts later?

Appalled at the Sale, Not at the Killing

You see, how is it that we’re appalled at the notion of selling baby parts, but many people were not at all disturbed that the babies were being killed? The news of the sale of the body parts—and I do understand that a lot of the videos are being disputed and some are claiming they’ve been heavily edited—that’s completely irrelevant.

Because what’s going on in the abortion clinics is the killing of babies and that everybody agrees on. agrees and we know this and we have known this for years and we need to open our eyes to this in in in our text today in Matthew and in in many places in Scripture it is striking how often it says Jesus. Saul he saw the multitudes he He was willing to look at the needs around him. He was willing to see them. These videos have only brought home to us in a clear way perhaps what we already knew. But you see, the thing that we need to understand is that sometimes we can see and not see at the same time. We can know but not really see. You know, people will look back and say, how is it that in a Christian country like Britain hundreds of years ago, they tolerated slavery? How did this happen? Or we look back at Germany and the Holocaust. It was a Christian nation at the time. How could this happen? Because people knew, but they didn’t really see. They weren’t willing to truly stop and contemplate and think about what was really going on.

William Wilberforce: Open Your Eyes

A number of years ago I wrote a book on William Wilberforce, the great abolitionist, one of the men responsible for ending slavery in the British Empire. And one of his gifts, his, his friends said, one of the things that really made him a great man was his gift of imagination because he was able to see with his mind’s eye what others were not willing to look at. That’s all imagination is. It is seeing with the mind. Because he was willing to allow himself to imagine what it was like to be a slave, to Imagine what it was like to be treated as chattel. Imagine what it would have been like to be thrown off overboard on a ship. Imagine what it would be like to be beaten and whipped. He was able to imagine, he was willing to see with his mind’s eye what was going on around him. And so we don’t want to imagine. We don’t want to think about a baby being torn apart. We don’t want to think about a baby being burned alive in its mother’s womb. We don’t want to think about these things with the eye of our imagination. I understand. It’s painful. We don’t want to know. But we do know. We do know. So you will continue to see news reports about those videos and there will be legal challenges, there are already legal challenges, and as far as we know, the videos are false. It’s completely irrelevant. We know, we know that a million babies every year are killed in America. We know this. We are accountable for our knowledge. One of the things that strikes me about scripture as I’ve studied it more and more is the realization that we’re also accountable for what we don’t know. Now that might sound like a contradiction of what I just said, but what I mean is this. If we have knowledge available and we refuse to look at the knowledge, then we and we are accountable for our ignorance.

You following me? If we have the means available, if the facts are right there in front of us, but we turn away, then we are accountable. You know, Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan, the priest that came by, he walked on the other side. He didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to get too close. didn’t want to see, because maybe the humanity of the person would be too real, and then make a claim upon him. We’ve been talking a lot the past few weeks about Jesus teaching us to be where, how we hear, right, take heed, how we hear. It’s interesting in that text and mark that we’ve been looking at where it’s usually translated take heed how you hear. Literally it could be translated see how you hear. Well, that’s a mixed metaphor, but that’s what the word means, to see.

Look at how you hear, because how you hear affects how you see, and how you see affects how you hear. And it’s all about knowledge. It’s all about knowing the truth.

So we know, but we need to open our eyes to what we know and truly look at it for what it is. But secondly, we need to open our hearts. In our text in Matthew, it says in verse Matthew, it says in verse 36, and when he saw, he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them because they were weary and b scattered like sheep, having no shepherd.

Compassion

So Jesus not only opened his eyes and saw all the needs around him, Jesus opened his heart and felt the needs around him. You see, it’s not enough to know that abortion is happening in our city, in our country.

We know this, and we’ve known this for a long time, but we have to allow that knowledge to enter our hearts. So in addition to opening our eyes, we need to open our hearts to what we see.

I don’t know about you, but I want to protect my heart. I want to shield my heart. I don’t want to feel the pain in my society. I’m just being honest. But I also understand that as a Christian, as a Jesus Christ-follower, I do not have that option. , as a Christian, I am called to be like Jesus Christ, and this text and many others tells us that when Jesus saw, Jesus had compassion. His open eyes were matched with an open heart. And this word, compassion, here, there are several in scripture, but this is the one which speaks of the visceral, gut-wrenching reaction to suffering around you.

It is being moved or shaken with. This word could be translated, his insides trembled or shook.

It is a deep pathos, a deep passion, a deep feeling. It is being moved when you see the pain and suffering of others. When we have compassion for others, we’re able to identify with them and put ourselves in their place. You know, I think that in this whole pro-life arena that very often those who are pro-life, some of them are not good at demonstrating compassion. And I think that those who are conservative theologically and even socially, and that’s We’re in danger of reacting to liberalism’s tolerance or liberalism’s welfare mentality and reacting in an unchristian way. You see, because the Bible stresses personal responsibility, which it does, rather than the victim mentality we see in our society, we can be susceptible to indifference at the pain of others. And it’s very easy to think, even though it may never be said, it’s their own fault. It’s their own fault. Of course it’s their own fault. That’s what sin is. If it wasn’t their fault, it wouldn’t be a sin. We have to understand that most of the pain and suffering in the world is our fault. Yeah, true, there are natural disasters. But all the wars and so much of the evens of the famine and the oppression and so much suffering that goes on is because people make stupid choices. Why? Because they’re fallen. Now imagine if Jesus, God, the Father, and Jesus were looking out the world after the fall of the fall and said, well, Adam and Eve was really stupid now and just followed along. their own fault. It’s their own fault. It was their fault. It was their fault. But that’s not compassion. That’s self-righteousness. Man, that’s the Pharisees. Read John 9 sometime about the man born blind and how they hear this guy was born blind and he gets healed and They’re on a legalistic witch hunt to find out who did this. No sympathy for the man, no rejoicing in his healing. They’re utterly hard-hearted in their holiness. And we must be careful of not falling into this sin. Jesus’ response to the multitudes was not judgment. It was not criticism, it was not condemnation. He came not to condemn the world, but to save it. I had a conversation with someone a few months ago, and I was just sharing with them what my wife was doing at Thrive, and my daughter is involved in Thrive, and all the great work that’s happening. And his response really shocked me. He’s like, these women know exactly what they’re doing. And maybe they do. But it was the callousness that really threw me back. That because they sin knowingly, they do not deserve compassion. Let me ask you this, how many times do you sin knowingly? Well,. I’m serious. Most of the time. It’s just that you lie to yourself and say you don’t know. But you know. Most of the time we know. The scripture says that Eve was deceived, but Adam knew. Yet nonetheless, God sent a Redeemer. He sent Jesus to save people who knew that they were sinners, who knew that they were sitting, that were choosing sin, that the scripture says were his enemies, he came to save. So we must be careful in our thinking about life issues as they’re called.

We must understand that yes, people are responsible for their choices, but God did not establish you or I as their judge. God will judge them. God will judge them. But God will judge us too. And God is not asking me to discern people’s hearts and then determine if they deserve my compassion. Because I do not have the capacity to discern whether they are worthy or not. The reality is none of us are worthy. I am called to be like Jesus Christ. Jesus wants me to show those in need, those suffering, those women, He wants them to know that he loves them and can rescue them. That’s what he wants. That’s the message he wants them to hear from us. He loves them and he can rescue them. And if they choose to close their eyes to that, that’s their decision. But we are to be like Jesus and when he encountered the multitudes, he was willing to look and open his eyes and then relenting to feel that is to open his heart. If we are honest, we have to ask ourselves this question, how is it that we have known all these years that abortion goes on daily in America? We have known this years, but we have done so little to stop? Is it a knowledge problem? I don’t think it is. Yes, we’ve opened our eyes, but we’ve not opened our hearts. We’re not letting the reality of what’s going on truly sink in. It’s a lack of, you could say imagination, but I think it’s a lack of compassion. So So much easier to condemn the sinner than to rescue him. So safe in our piety, and so safe in our self-righteousness, so safe in our condemnation.

But to be a rescuer, well, that means you have to lay down your life. You have to sacrifice. just like Jesus did. Just like Jesus did. The only way he could rescue us was through sacrifice. And the only way we’re going to be able to rescue these children and rescue these women and even some of the men who are part of this whole mess, the only way we can rescue is through sacrifice. There’s no easy way. It’s not the next president. It’s not the next vote. It’s not that simple.

We Get the Government We Deserve

I don’t want to give a political sermon, but I want to say this. We get the government we deserve.

We will complain about the fact that people in government do nothing, nothing, and yet we have a culture of barbarism and death. It’s a cultural problem. It’s a cultural problem, not a political problem. And if the culture, people’s hearts change, then you’ll see a change in the government. It may take time, but you will see a change. As much as I’m frustrated with our government, I really do believe that we are getting what we deserve. And it is a rebuke to the church that we have tolerated these things that go on, literally for generations. So we need to open our hearts, we need to have compassion. Thirdly, we need to open our mouths. Open our mouths. In Proverbs 31, if you want to turn there, and then we will come back to Matthew again. Proverbs 31 says in verse 8, Open your mouth for the speechless, in the cause of all who are appointed to die.

Open Your Mouth for the Poor and Needy

Open your mouth and judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and the needy.

The unborn are just one class, if you will, one group of the poor and the needy in our society. There are others. There are the poor. There are the needy. There are the homeless. There are many who are disenfranchised, many who live on the margins of society.

And we are called to open our mouths for them, to speak. This clearly means to be an advocate for what is right, what is just.

Not only in what we say, but I believe in what we do, in how we vote. We are to be advocates for the poor and the needy. This means we can’t forget the marginalized in the way we approach our lifestyle, our voting, and many other choices that we make in our lives. We cannot close our eyes to that, but rather we open our eyes, We open our hearts and then we open our mouths and we advocate. We also need to open our mouths in another way and that is we need to be preaching the gospel. As I just said, the troubling, disturbing things that go on in the abortion clinics are a symptom of a deeper rot [audio unclear] at the core of our society. The fact that we are killing babies at this rate, in terrible ways, and the fact that we have known this for over 40 years and tolerated it to happen, shows the depth of the darkness which has invaded our culture. It is a spirit of death, a spirit of bloodshed, And it is feeding on people, literally.

Thrive and the Need for Revival

And if there’s not a revival in the culture, the killing will continue. Now, Thrive and other organizations are doing wonderful work. They are literally saving lives. Do you understand that? I mean, not figuratively, literally. My wife will come home from work today and talk about a woman who came in, wanted, wanted to have an abortion, and she saw an ultrasound, and she decided, I’m going to keep my baby.

A life was literally saved. And I hear story after story like that, and then I hear stories about how a woman comes in and she doesn’t know Jesus, and by the time she walks out, she’s born again.

A soul was saved. Lives were saved and it’s literal, literal rescue on a regular basis.

This is what we need. We need the transformation of, hearts, if we’re going to see this abortion thing ultimately end. Because it only goes on because it’s tolerated and it’s only tolerated because of of the hardness of our hearts. So there has to be a change in the culture, not just a couple politicians. I mean a sweeping change in the culture. We have got to begin to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ because it matters because you know what? It does matter. It matters. The only hope for any society, American or otherwise, is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because as He saves souls, He changes lives. Those lives then are transformed, and that transformation works its way out into family life, it works its way out into church life, into civil government, and there’s a transformation, there’s an elevation of morality and values because there is light in the culture, the Spirit of God is moving in the culture, And there’s transformation that happens as a result of the proclamation of the Gospel. So we must open our mouths to preach the Gospel. In our text in Matthew, Jesus looks at the multitudes and he has compassion. Then he looks at his 12 and he says, pray, pray. And he didn’t say pray for them, he said pray for labors for them. In other words, pray for the church. There’s no shortage of needs around us. There’s no shortage of unsaved people. Do you realize that? You’re going to go out today for lunch at a restaurant and you’ll be around unsaved people. You go to school tomorrow or work tomorrow, you’ll be around unsaved people. There’s no shortage of opportunities. It’s just a question of will we take advantage of the opportunities. we proclaim the gospel or not. But we also need to open our mouths in prayer. The prophetic aspect of the church is to proclaim and advocate, but the priestly aspect of the church is to interced. And I think that we have unfortunately made a very unhealthy division between the newspaper and our prayer life. And we’ll pray about personal things, and maybe we’ll pray about church things, but it’s almost as if we believe that somehow God is absent out there. Now, it may look that way, because the world at times can look very God-forsaken, amen.

But the reality is God is out there. God is working in people’s lives. And I believe that when it comes to the question of life and life issues, I believe the prayer is perhaps the most neglected weapon that we have. And I think that the time we spend in prayer, or do not spend in prayer, speaks volumes about what we believe about the God we’re praying to. Let me ask you this. Do you believe that God cares about abortion? Which is really another way of saying, do you believe God cares about the individual women that are driving into Planned Parenthood? Or the individual women that walk into a Thrive Clinic? Does God care about that person? Let me ask you this. Is God able to save that person? You really believe that? Let me ask this question. [audio unclear] It’s your money, my money. Half a billion should be going to Thrive.

You believe God can do that? Well, then, if we really believe that, man, we need to be a praying people. If we believe God can rescue lives, if we believe God can save unborn lives. If we believe God can stop an organization that is responsible for so much bloodshed, man, how we ought to be interceding to that end. Amen? Amen.

Plead Their Cause

Open your mouths for the poor and the needy. Open your mouths for the abandoned woman.

Open your mouths for the unborn child. This is what this text tells us in Proverbs. Plead their cause not just with men, but plead their cause with God. Let’s stand together. We’re going to pray together. I’ll give you an opportunity to pray. But I thank you that you see, you have open eyes, you care, you have an open heart, and you speak, you have an open mouth. And you’ve spoken to us in your word because you do see our need and you do care.

Closing Prayer

I pray that we would do likewise. I pray that you would give us the grace to embrace the pain that we see.

I pray that you grant us the faith to truly believe that you are able to rescue, heal, and restore. And I pray, Lord, that like you and we will only pray, but we will be agents and advocates of rescue. We come to you now, Lord. We want to intercede, Lord, because we want the killing to stop. Father, we do believe that you are able to rescue, to save, to heal.

We do pray, Lord, there will be women this very week walking into Thrive who need You.

We pray for them even now. We pray that you prepare their hearts to receive the gospel. We pray, Lord, that you would move their hearts toward their child. We pray that they would decide to parent and not to abort. I pray Lord for the staff of Thrive and all the many clinics around the country. I pray God that you protect them from the evil one. Protect them from the spirit of death and bloodshed that is behind the abortion industry. I pray Lord that you would encourage them, that you would empower them, that you would daily remind them of the holy calling they have, the value of what they’re doing as they rescue, literally rescue lives.

Guard and protect them, Lord, we pray. We ask, Lord, that You would defund Planned Parenthood. Redirect it away from abortion and toward life. We ask that You would take that money—Lord, it’s money that we are giving to our government—God, take that money and transfer it to the righteous. And I also pray for all of us as your people that we would understand our place, understand what we are called to do, in terms of supporting, volunteering, giving, praying, that we would all understand the part that we play and that we would play it well. Teach us, Lord, how to walk in such a way that we walk in your joy, yet we’re able to carry the burdens of others at the same time. and that we don’t forget because it’s too painful.

But help us to see not only the pain around us, but help us to see it through your gospel and through your power and through your shed blood. So thus we can see it with hope. We pray these things, Lord, in Your name. Amen.

← The Ways of GodThe Ways of God II →